you'd be surprised how many people take the test without studying a month.

Logic Games and Logical Reasoning are things that people have never really seen before. so if you don't study, its natural that you wouldnt know how to do it. Perhaps it seems so easy when you come on TLS, where most people go balls to the wall for admissions, but for the average prelaw, its about on par.

gamerish wrote:Because there are an astonishing number of shit hole law schools that are little more than massive scam houses that accept those scores in order give people the illusion they have the capabilities to actually be successful lawyers and con them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

How would this explain why people get those scores in the first place?

I don't know, after seeing the folks who took the LSAT with me at my testing center, I'm not surprised. A not insignificant number of folks had pretty substantial questions about how the test even worked.

Median is 150 because the test is scaled to make 150 the median. What you really want to know is why so many dumb fucks are taking the test.

If the bottom 50% stopped taking the test, getting a 150 would become as hard as getting a 158–59 is now. If you lopped off another 50% after that (so, 75% total), getting a 150 would become about as hard as getting a 163 is now.

I have to wonder if this thread was motivated by a true sense of duty and empathy for his fellow man, general uncomfortableness at being at a top percentile, or just passive aggressive, elitist haterism.

Calvin Murphy wrote:Median is 150 because the test is scaled to make 150 the median. What you really want to know is why so many dumb fucks are taking the test.

If the bottom 50% stopped taking the test, getting a 150 would become as hard as getting a 158–59 is now. If you lopped off another 50% after that (so, 75% total), getting a 150 would become about as hard as getting a 163 is now.

I thought it wasn't a perfect curve so that LSAT scores could be compared across tests. In other words, the scoring scale is designed so that getting a 150 on one test is always (about) as hard as getting 150 on another test. Also, the median is around 150 but on any given test could be 151, 149, etc.

The better question is why is the 90th percentile not good enough of the best schools? On most things in life, (i.e. wealth) if you were top 10% you'd be happy, but with LSAT, most of us need to be top percent to even be satisfied.

RaiderRed wrote:The better question is why is the 90th percentile not good enough of the best schools? On most things in life, (i.e. wealth) if you were top 10% you'd be happy, but with LSAT, most of us need to be top percent to even be satisfied.

Because there are enough people with a 98th or 99th percentile score to fill the classes of the best schools.

Either way, I take both the fact that the median LSAT score on the LSAT is 150 on the 12-180 range as well as the fact that water boils at 100 C to be proof that God exists.

RaiderRed wrote:The better question is why is the 90th percentile not good enough of the best schools? On most things in life, (i.e. wealth) if you were top 10% you'd be happy, but with LSAT, most of us need to be top percent to even be satisfied.

I'm curious why the scale goes from 120 to 180 instead of using round numbers. Is that just to discourage people from saying something like 900/1000 = 90th percentile? Several standardized tests use that 8xx scale and I've never understood why.

RZ5646 wrote:I'm curious why the scale goes from 120 to 180 instead of using round numbers. Is that just to discourage people from saying something like 900/1000 = 90th percentile? Several standardized tests use that 8xx scale and I've never understood why.

It's common in statistics to put the median at 50 and then one standard deviation in either direction (2/3 of the data) is 40/60, two standard deviations (95% of the data) is 30/70, and three standard deviations is 20/80 and covers just about everyone. Not sure why they decided to add a "1" before those numbers for the LSAT, but that gets you at least part of the way there.

I think I phrased my original statement in a way you misinterpreted it. Obviously we all need the top percentile scores to successfully get what we want in the current market. I was more pointing out my belief that I thought it was dumb that we have to pursue such lofty standards in order to reach our ultimate goals when other facets of life do not require us to in order for satisfaction. I completely understand the TLS mindset and am part of it, but I'm obviously not explaining what I meant full enough for it to be comprehended. Just know I agree with everything you stated.

Some things I'm referring to are admissions outside of law school. UT pharmacy school is extremely highly regarded and over half of their class scores below 90% on the PCAT. I understand why we have to gun, it just shocked me when I first got into TLS of how crazy high our LSAT scores have to be compared to other standardized tests.